the world taught me angst when I deserved joy
by theyellowumbrella
Summary: He kisses her under the moonlight, his lips taste of smoke and cherries and everything's normal for a minute /or/ the rise and fall of Rory Gilmore


Things start changing after she starts at Chilton, which is all books and knowledge and the _intellectualfuckingperfection_ that Rory Gilmore has always wanted and never had.

\\. \

For a while, things are fine. People go easy on her because she's new, but then it becomes months and expectations are set. She settles into Chilton life as well as she can, makes new friends and makes new enemies, just like the average sixteen year old.

But there's always the undercurrent of something _wron_ _g_ nagging away at her.

\\. \

Summer starts, and pressures are high.

Books overflow her room and she's never without one by her side. Days are spent at Luke's, drinking coffee and eating cherry danishes, studying the Spanish Inquisition while her mother falls unknowingly in love.

Luke's nephew comes to town and Dean fades into the background, and she falls in love for what feels like the first time. He takes her to eat ice cream and study, and dreams of Harvard and journalism go down the drain. She breaks her arm but he's there in the emergency room holding her hand so she keeps the official report of the accident hidden between exam prep sheets and history textbooks. He kisses her under the moonlight, his lips taste of smoke and cherries and everything's normal for a minute.

She may not be Chilton _intellectualfuckingperfection_ , but she's smart enough to know this kind of perfect doesn't last.

\\. \

Jess leaves on a bus sometime in July after the car accident. He says he'll call but he never does. She rips up the Luke's receipts he wrote notes on and burns them in the bonfire.

She kisses dean and he tastes of strawberries and diet coke.

That's that.

\\. \

She destroys every single one of her textbooks because every time she opens one she's reminded of all of the notes he'd leave when she was studying with him.

Lorelai is furious but she feels much better inside after it without his messy handwriting there to tease her.

Her grandparents buy a whole new set of books, shiny and clear of any trace of jessandrory.

\\. \

She gets back together with Dean and kisses him over and over whenever he asks if she loves Jess.

When she's walking home at midnight after a dinner with Dean's family and a heavy makeout session, she thinks that Jess would be disappointed in her.

She doesn't care and so she thinks that she must have moved on and allows herself to be proud.

 _(Liar)_

\\. \

Jess gets a new girl within a month and she's almost impressed.

 _(Because a month, really? She's a big hypocrite because she's with dean again, but this girl is everything she isn't, blonde hair and fake boobs and all)_

\\. \

She feels she's the only one that sees their ending point.

 _(of course they have an ending point. If jessandrory had one then of course jessandwhatshername do)_

\\. \

He comes back and tells her he misses her, and things are simple again. They fall into some kind of messed up relationship, frowned upon by her mother and loved by his uncle.

Somewhere along the line, things get blurred and messy and it doesn't work out.

Over late night coffee, her mom tells her that she's sorry that he broke her heart. She reminds her that she got over him once so she can do it again and it wasn't that hard anyway.

 _(Turns out, she's a_ _fan-_ fucking- _tastic_ _actress as well)_

\\. \

Months pass and she starts Yale with paris. Reminders of him are taken with her and they sit, manifesting themselves in every part of her new, fresh room until one day, she packs everything into a cardboard box that says S _tars Hollow High School photos_ that reminds her of Jess along with a box of matches and goes to the courtyard with Marty _(what happened with this guy anyway?)_ to burn them. It goes up in flames, photographs turning to ashes. She doesn't feel much better, but puts that down to the fact that she didn't burn every single thing.

 _(And she never will)_

\\. \

Jess texts her sometimes. It's not as if she ever replies to him, because she most certainly doesn't.

 _(honestly)_

She visits Stars Hollow and falls asleep on Luke's sofa while her mom is arguing with him about some wedding and Nicole _(because luke was_ _ **hers**_ _first even if he's his uncle and so was the diner and he's too in love with her mom to refuse her)_ while he dates some New Yorker with a brash personality and experience, and even though they're wrapped up in their little bubble, he texts her.

It gives her some sort of sick satisfaction to know that he still wants her, that part of him still belongs to her even when he _(ditched dumped deserted dismissed dropped destroyed)_ her. she hopes that he feels pain when she posts on her facebook wall that she's never felt happier than she does now at yale, but most of all, she hopes that he believes it.

\\. \

She loses her virginity to Dean. Her bed's a single and so it's cramped and uncomfortable, and he's not her Prince Charming anymore. when it's over, they talk about things and play music and proclaim some shitty song _their song_ , and when her mom finds them together, messy hair and all, she's glad in a way that his presence beside her is gone and she doesn't have to look him in the eye anymore. But all the same, she texts a photo of Dean lying in her bed to Jess without looking back when she's drinking Luke's old beers at three in the morning.

 _(She's always secretly loved making him jealous)_

\\. \

He drives to New Haven on the night of the wedding. Dean's there with her and Jess is there too and _ohshitohshitohshit_ he's going to ask her to choose. By now, she's changed to fit his absence and is actually fine with it. He wants her back and Dean wants her to choose him. She feels sixteen again, with the world at her fingertips and two cute boys wanting her.

 _"Tell me, who do you want?"_

So she says Dean because she can't give him the satisfaction and tells him to go. There's a brokenness in his eyes that was never there before but she's sure that some New York girl can fix him, just like the last time.

She wonders when Dean's pressing her against a wall if this means that she's over him yet.

 _(Not even close)_

\\. \

She goes to school the next day with sore thighs and a heavy heart.

He's waiting outside of her dorm building, face blank but with _sadfuriousupsetdesperatedeterminedheartbroken_ eyes. SHe tries to walk past him, pretends his eyes aren't burning holes into her back, but he blocks her path with his skinny pale arm.

 _"What the fuck was that? why did you choose him?"_

Before she has time to reply or think up an answer, they're shouting at each other, spitting venom out like they have hundredthousandmillion times before.

 _"I've apologised so much! I know you got the texts I sent!" (She didn't, she ended up blocking his number so she couldn't see his countless texts of iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou)_

 _"I don't want to talk about this right now."_

 _"You have to talk about it some time!"_

 _"No, I don't! Why don't you go talk to your new girlfriend, hmm? Who is it this week?"_

 _"You don't get to judge me when you're off fucking **F**_ _ **orester**_ _!"_

 _"It's not just sex."_

 _"I love you, you know that!"_

 _"It's not just sex."_

 _"You already said that"_

 _"It's not just ... why are you here? We broke up over a year ago."_

 _"Because I love you!"_

 _"You don't understand... Dean and I are-"_

 _"Don't you dare tell me what I do and don't understand - I_ _fucking love you! God, I've told you a million times, can you please just understand. Please."_

\\. \

She stops then, just for a minute, halted by the utmost sincerity in his plead.

 _(She's maybe not intellectualfuckingperfection but she's smart enough to know he's not lying)_

\\. \

He kisses her and the stars all align.

* * *

 **A/N:** repost, after over two years of it being out there. still love this piece, but it needed some fixing.


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